Hey everyone! I hope you had a great weekend and an awesome start to the work week. Well, here we are. Week 8. I only have four more days left being an intern for Expanish and two more Spanish lessons at the language school. Along with this, it is difficult for me to believe that I have been in Madrid since May 22 and that after so much time this Saturday I return to the United States. Time really flew by this summer and genuinely did not feel like I had spent so much time here in Spain already. This past weekend three students from Chapman University finished their program and returned home, which further led to my disbelief that this program is almost over for me and the other students still here.
To capitalize on my last weekend in Madrid, Spain, and Europe in general, I decided to not travel and instead spent my time doing things I did not do yet in the city. On Saturday, after doing some souvenir shopping, I went to the famous San Ginés for churros and chocolate. San Ginés is a chocolatier that has been open since 1894; they are world-renowned and on the walls of the shop there are pictures of famous celebrities that have stopped by during their visits to Madrid. As expected, the churros and chocolate were delicious and I luckily beat the afternoon rush, where the line wrapped around the winding street corner. On Sunday I then went to mass at the parish where my host mom goes to and spent my afternoon at the Prado. Another world-renowned site in Madrid, this famous museum is two hundred years old, contains four floors, and hosts art from a wide range of artists, techniques, and backgrounds. My favorite piece I got to see was “El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid” (The Third of May 1808 in Madrid). This famous painting by Francisco Goya was the topic of a project I did the first semester of my first year at Pitt. It depicts the execution of Spaniards by French soldiers after Napoleon’s armies invaded Spain during the Peninsula Wars and was the number one reason I wanted to visit the museum.
My favorite event from this weekend, however, was watching the Euro championship on Sunday night. Spain faced off against England and in honor of the game the city put up a big screen for fans to go and watch the game. The excitement in Madrid that day was contagious and everywhere I went I saw jerseys and fans wearing their best red and yellow. After an exciting game, Spain ended up victorious, winning 2-1! The streets of Madrid last night were alive and the celebrations in the street did not end. From the giant crowd gathered at the big screen to fans on the metro on my way home, cheers, chants, and celebrations did not end. As a big sports fan myself, having the opportunity to witness Real Madrid win the Champions League and Spain win the Euros created some of the best memories I will take away from this trip. I will never forget being a part of soccer culture here in Europe and witnessing such a great sports summer for Madrid and Spain.
After interning for seven weeks at Expanish, I have gotten the opportunity to see how Spain defines success in a professional sense. Spaniards define success by the success of the organization, not just on an individual level. During my interview, my bosses told me that the organization looks for interns who are ambitious and open-minded, which revealed to me that it is important to be selfless and be a team-player if you are going to be successful at Expanish. Another example of this was when there was a company-wide meeting to reveal the new school location in Barcelona and for the first-time professors were invited to join the meeting. This showed me that success for one school, individual, or group is a win for everyone involved in the organization, no matter what role they play in it.
In my internship and industry, I would say a successful/effective employee creates relationships with people. On my first day, my boss encouraged me to eat lunch with the teachers, even though we did not have much collaboration in our work. In Spain, a successful professional relationship means taking an interest in the lives of your coworkers and when working in the study abroad industry, creating meaningful relationships is everything. You want to create strong impressions and connections on your visitors, students, and professors so that they are likely to return or say good things about your organization. This differs in the United States because in the US, although we care about creating relationships, there is less of an emphasis on creating these types of personal connections in the workplace with our coworkers.
